Fiction
By diav
Genre: Friendship/Angst
Rating: T
Characters: Maura Isles, Jane Rizzoli
Story Type: one-shot
Summary: Inspired by B2ST's Fiction. Maura reflects on her life after Paddy Doyle is shot. Not AU, but a mix of the TV series and novels' universes.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the Rizzoli & Isles series, nor do I own the lyrics to B2ST's Fiction.
I'm happy.
We are working together.
Now is the start,
there is no end.
Maura flipped through her journal. She found those words scribbled a few days after she first met Detective Jane Rizzoli and was entranced by the woman, for the brunette was quite a character.
The medical examiner sighed and closed the journal. It was the first book of five, one for every year that she started working for the state of Massachusetts. Opening the newest of the batch, she took her pen and began writing.
I will rewrite it again, our story will not end.
I will bury fact that reality is seeping into my skin for now.
I rewrite it once again, the start beginning with you and I smiling happily.
Maura paused. Did she honestly want to rewrite history knowing how it will play out again? Ever since Jane shot Patrick Doyle, she had been too upset to face her friend... If Jane was her friend, anyway.
"Friends don't shoot your father," murmured Maura as she replayed that day's events in her mind.
After Maura had vehemently denied Jane any access to the injured Doyle, she had heard Jane angrily exasperate to Frost that Doyle was "just a sperm donor, not a real father."
She was angry at the brunette, but the detective's words hung onto her for the rest of the day, even after accompanying Doyle to the hospital. He was place under intensive care with a police unit on watch. The emergency doctors had told Maura to get some rest, oblivious to the fact that she was related to one of the notorious Boston mobsters.
So she went home, showered the grime off her body and checked through the many messages Jane left on her machine. All of them sounded the same.
"Hey, Maur, it's Jane, can we talk?"
"Maura, if you can give me a call, I'd greatly appreciate it."
"Maur, I heard the surgery went well, can you... call me back please?"
And so forth.
But she didn't call Jane. No, she was in such shock that Jane would do such a thing, but she knew Jane reacted out of instinct.
That's just how she is, thought Maura. She's quick on her feet and goes automatic when people are in danger... What if Patrick had shot at Frost? Cops don't take cop killers lightly, I know, but Jane could have done something much worse to Patrick... I'm glad she didn't.
But, she thought as she continued jotting down her thoughts, what am I supposed to do now? It's obvious Jane wants to fix things, but-
Maura put down her pen.
What would it mean to her if Patrick Doyle died of his injuries? Was she supposed to feel sorrow? Or anger that he never told her about her mother - her biological mother? Who was Hope? What would happen to Jane if Patrick died? Would she feel remorse or be proud that she took down one of the biggest mob bosses Boston had ever seen?
Maura shook her head. This was too much for her to handle. While she got along better with her peers in Boston, she preferred it much better when she had no emotional attachment to the people around her, like her old life back in San Francisco.
Too many times had her friendship with Jane been tested over the course of the years they had known each other. And this was the biggest test of all.
Am I supposed to forgive her?
She picked up her pen again and wrote.
I'm the writer who lost her purpose.
The end of this novel, how am I supposed to write it?
My own fiction.
Life is like a story. One big story that does not have an ending even when people die.
I love Jane as a friend, Maura thought, I can't betray those feelings, but she betrayed my trust when she shot Paddy Doyle. A man who gave me life, as much as I don't want to admit it. It wasn't him who raised me, but he still brought me into this world.
Maura watched Bass crawl around her bedroom. The tortoise had a habit of wandering around at night, especially nights where Maura couldn't sleep - tonight, for example. Perhaps he knew she was distressed and wanted to comfort her with his presence. Maura smiled as Bass thumped into her bedside table. She picked him up and put him on the bed with her. Content that he was closer to his master, Bass stayed still has Maura gently ran her fingers over his shell.
Life is a story and a map of one's journey, thought Maura, kind of like Bass' shell. Sometimes everything's going well, but then you hit a few speed bumps. She found a particular groove in Bass' shell that was rather deep.
Maybe that's what is happening to me, she thought as she traced her finger along the groove. I just have to climb back out of this groove and set things straight.
She pat her tortoise lightly and put him back onto the floor again. Bass slowly got up and made his way out, thumping along the walls to the kitchen, where Maura had left him strawberries.
Maura looked at her journal again and sighed.
I know these words will never reach you, Jane.
My life is my own fiction.
"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you."
I keep writing these 3 words.
Right now I'm writing such a happy story,
But it is all just a wish still.
Now is the start,
there is no end.
Author's Notes: I had a plot bunny for this story a while back, right after watching the Season 2 finale, but never spent the time writing it - only bits and pieces here and there. I'd say this is rather unpolished in itself because I didn't want to elaborate on things that might not happen in Season 3 (thereby rendering the story useless), so the vagueness is deliberate. Not to mention, I scrambled this week to get it done before the third season airs next Tuesday. We'll see how everything plays out...
This can be read as a companion piece to Enchanted, but it can also be a standalone fic as well. I like mixing both the novel and TV universes because the novels provide us with enough character development (hence Maura's origins from San Francisco), but the TV series exhibits the characters' emotions better.
Story title and italicised lyric translations are from "Fiction" by B2ST. The Korean version, mind you, I don't like how the Japanese version was done and I prefer the Korean lyrics. Slight modifications were made to the lyrics to put everything into context. Lyric translations are from irena040506.